


A Scandal of Her Very Own

by MinervaFan



Category: A Room with a View (movie)
Genre: F/F, flowery language no modern writer uses naturally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-03
Updated: 2005-08-03
Packaged: 2020-03-02 11:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18810181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinervaFan/pseuds/MinervaFan
Summary: Miss Lucy Honeychurch has eloped with Mr. George Emerson.  All is resolved, and the anger between Lucy and her cousin Charlotte has been settled.  Now all that remains, it seems, is to restore the friendship between Charlotte and the infamous Miss Eleanor Lavish.





	A Scandal of Her Very Own

**Author's Note:**

> The writing style was done deliberately to emulate E.M. Forster's style. Oh, the many chapters of that book that I read and reread to get my brain to work this way. Now, I just want to get drunk. ;)

_Cycling through Tunbridge Wells_

There were few things in the world more inspiring to Miss Eleanor Lavish than a mystery. Mysteries, and a bold and passionate desire to resolve them, were her bread and butter, the stuff upon which she thrived. It was mystery that drove her out of small town life into the great world to become, as she so often told anyone who would listen, a student of human nature. It was mystery that brought her to Italy, to Venice, to Portofino, and of course, to beautiful Florence, called Firenze by the Italians. And it was Florence where she had sown the seeds of this mystery which had her now, in the midst of a rather nasty rain shower, tooling on her rented bicycle through the muddy streets of Tunbridge Wells.

Miss Lavish, as a student of human nature, a world traveler, and a novelist, had met many people in her adventures. One of the most satisfying friendships that she had formed had been with a resident of Tunbridge Wells, a spinster (oh, how she loathed that word—let her be called a woman of independent means, or a woman of freedom, but why spinster?) by the name of Miss Charlotte Bartlett, with whom (after a brief but terribly enjoyable acquaintance in Florence) she had corresponded regularly for a while.

It was to her great surprise and even greater disappointment that she received the letter some three weeks earlier, penned in Miss Bartlett's perfect curlicues, saying curtly that Miss Bartlett no longer wished to continue their correspondence, nor their friendship. That was the entire note, the new mystery to be solved, Miss Bartlett's unilateral dissolution of their friendship.

Obviously, to anyone who knew Miss Lavish, this was a situation which could not remain unresolved. Three letters had been sent in the three weeks since she'd received Miss Bartlett's note, and three letters had been summarily returned, unopened, to her address in London.

It was the third unopened letter that prompted Miss Lavish to cancel her engagements for the weekend, to purchase a fare on the train to Tunbridge Wells, and to rent the very bicycle she was currently riding from the porter, so as to make her way more freely through town. As she rode, drawing moist, cool air into her lungs, she noted her surroundings with the eye of a writer. One never knew when a house there, or a garden there, might serve as nectar to the muse, so one always took in each detail of one's surroundings with great care to the future.

And it was in this mood that she found herself at the home of Miss Charlotte Bartlett, a mood of openness to the splendor of the world and its wonders. She rested her bike against the hedge, opening the rickety gate and marching straight up to the front door, thank you very much. It had just begun to turn dusk, and the rain had dissipated into a dreary mist. Miss Bartlett's home was of the modest sort that women of limited means find themselves in when they have nothing but their own wits and modest fortune upon which to depend. But it was well maintained, and even rather pretty in the garden.

Having not written ahead to warn of her arrival, not that any such letter of intent would have been opened or read by Miss Bartlett, Miss Lavish had nothing else to do but knock boldly on the front door to announce herself. Three solid raps, then three raps more when no answer came to the first.

She heard a rustling behind the door, noticed in the corner of her eye that curtains were being subtly shifted to allow one inside to peer unnoticed outside, to gain the identity of the caller through surreptitious means.

And still no answer to her knocks. Miss Lavish felt quite sure that Miss Bartlett would let her stand out here in the humidity for hours, rapping her knuckles silly, until at last she went away. But Miss Lavish was a student of human nature, and she knew well what Miss Bartlett's nature entailed. She had also taken careful note of the closeness of the neighbors, the crowded nature of this particular street, and she knew that Miss Bartlett would rather face her than the concerned stares of neighbors should a ruckus ensue.

"Charlotte Bartlett," Miss Lavish cried in a rather loud voice. "I know you're in there. Open this door at once, before I drown." There was another hesitation, and Miss Lavish added, slightly louder this time, "Open at once, or I shall scream. You know I shall."

This threat produced the desired result, and immediately the door opened to reveal a very flustered Miss Bartlett, who was obviously ready to turn in early as she was clad in a white dressing gown and robe, her hair pulled back into a single long braid. "Oh, do come in," she ordered in an impatient voice. "Before you have the neighbors out in arms."

"Why, thank you, dear Charlotte," Miss Lavish said, handing the taller woman her damp overcoat. "I do believe I shall come in for a visit."

_A Secret is Revealed._

It was a lovely tea Charlotte made. Miss Lavish felt compelled to grant her friend this one thing; even in the face of utter rudeness, Miss Bartlett was a good hostess. She had brought her to a drawing room, an old Victorian thing filled with knick-knacks and dusty photographs of long-dead relatives, and sat her down on a comfortable (if slightly dilapidated) couch to wait for the kettle to boil. Once tea was brewed, and with not even a word of conversation besides a casual 'Are you warm enough?' and 'How do you take your tea?', she sat down next to her as the only other chair in the room was quite hard and wobbled some.

It wasn't until the tea had been drunk and the biscuits nibbled that Miss Lavish felt compelled to force conversation to the purpose of her visit, most notably the letter. Upon broaching the subject, however, she met with a great deal of distress from her would-be former friend.

"I hardly think it is a matter for discussion at this time, Miss Lavish. You have put me out most discourteously, and I wish for you to leave now."

Eleanor Lavish noted what was said, and also what was not said. Long fingers clutched tightly around the handle of the teacup. There was a slight shift of Miss Bartlett's long body, and her eyes lit everywhere but on her guest. Anger? Perhaps, but more probably embarrassment. Yes, most definitely embarrassment.

Whatever reason on earth could Charlotte Bartlett have for embarrassment? From what Miss Lavish knew of her, the woman had spent her forty-odd years in a life of perfect conformity, following to the letter each narrow constriction presented to her by middle-class English society.

"My dear Charlotte," she began, keeping her tone soft and pliant. "Whatever have I done to you to garner such hostility? I had thought us the best of friends, bosom confidantes. Imagine my surprise and hurt to discover you do not return my heartfelt feelings of affection!"

"Affection?" Charlotte's voice rose slightly. Again, Miss Lavish noted and catalogued the sound, gauging it somewhere between disbelief and frustration. "You lay claims to affection after this horrible breach of trust you have committed against me?"

"What breach?"

Miss Bartlett set down her teacup with a small, but distinct thud. She then turned to face her former friend, eye to eye, with her arms folded tightly across her chest. "You look at me, in my own home, and presume to pretend you do not know how you have breached my trust?"

"Yes. I look at you. In your own home. And clearly state, to God and the angels, that I do not know how I have breached your trust." With that, Eleanor Lavish poured herself another cup of tea and grabbed a biscuit, which she bit defiantly. "Please enlighten me, Miss Bartlett, or I shall consider your anger with me to be an equally rude and unfair breach of trust."

At this, Charlotte closed her eyes in a very tight grimace, breathing in slowly and with decided care to calm herself. "In one of my letters, I revealed to you in confidence a certain incident, which you then proceeded to incorporate into your last novel." Her cheeks flushed furiously, and Miss Lavish knew immediately of which letter, and which incident, she was speaking.

"Oh, dear Charlotte! That? That is why you have ended our friendship?" She laughed heartily, and finished her biscuit. "You must know that, when one is friends with an artist, one might always find themselves muse to that creativity." But Miss Bartlett did not seem to appreciate the compliment; instead, her expression shifted between that of extreme anger and extreme humiliation. "Charlotte, I assure you, no one would ever suspect that you were the girl in the scene! I took great care to change her description, and personality, so as not to point the finger at you with my prose."

"You have caused me great embarrassment and tribulation, Miss Lavish, through your carelessness. You almost lost me the love and good wishes of my cousin, and worse!"

There was something in the tone of Charlotte's voice that caught Miss Lavish's imagination, transfixed, for a moment. Some hint of depth, some untold truth that would cast light on this mystery of why Charlotte was so very angry at her for such a silly thing. "Why on earth would Lucy be cross with you for this? How could she even know about this incident in your life? You were so young when it happened, she would only have been—" Then it hit her, square across the jaw as inspired wisdom so often does. "Lucy…" she murmured, letting the thought coalesce in her mind before continuing. "The scene, that glorious kiss in the field of barley, that was—"

"Lucy, yes," came Miss Bartlett's bitter response. "It happened to Lucy, and it was I who stumbled upon her. The spinster chaperon," she added with a touch of anger in her voice.

"But why? Why on earth would you pass off Lucy's adventure as your own?" And before the words were even clear of her lips, Miss Lavish knew the answer. She saw it as clearly as she saw the look of shame, the hunched shoulders, the utter devastation of spirit that was Miss Charlotte Bartlett. She had passed on Lucy's story because she had no story of her own to tell.

They were silent, neither able to find the words to speak in this moment of sublime discomfort. Eleanor looked at Charlotte, who looked away, seeming to burn under the scrutiny. It was curious that she had never been the object of romance, Miss Lavish thought. She was tall and nicely built, even at this age, with a thin waist and ample bosom. It took very little imagination to travel backwards in time and picture Miss Bartlett as a fine young woman from a good middle class family. Her clean features, good manners, and keen mind would have made her a perfectly acceptable object of youthful infatuation. So why, then, would Miss Charlotte Bartlett grow to be a spinster, oh that detestable word, but it fit her so aptly?

That Miss Bartlett was not alone through any choice of her own was more than apparent to Eleanor Lavish. Every indication was that this was a woman who craved company, who thrived in companionship even though she felt undeserving of it. This is not a woman who had chosen, as Miss Lavish had, to travel the world as a free woman.

She dissected Charlotte with her eyes, keenly sorting through the myriad emotions that played on her features. One kept making itself apparent to Miss Lavish—fear. Fear, the killer of dreams, the hidden assassin of hope, the brutal tyrant that puts its hammy fist down hard to destroy desire in all its forms!

It was fear that kept Miss Bartlett a spinster, fear that had kept her alone, and fear that had caused her to speak Lucy's truth as her own. Fear of what, though?

When she spoke, Eleanor made certain to keep her voice calm and gentle. "Charlotte, I am terribly sorry for any harm I may have caused between you and darling Lucia. But your use of the word 'almost' indicates that things were resolved between you two." To this, Miss Bartlett nodded a silent, but fervent, yes. "So if no permanent harm has been done, and if only you and Lucy know of the true source of my prose, then why should you now choose to deny me friendship?"

"How can I continue with our friendship, knowing that anything I say or do might become a target of your parody?"

"Parody?" Miss Lavish allowed herself a moment of indignation. "There was no parody in my recounting of that story, only honest and heartfelt admiration for the beauty of the tale. And I will never, henceforth, use anything you say or do as part of my writing without your express permission, I assure you."

"Who am I to ask that of you?" Charlotte's tone began to take on its habitual air of martyrdom, and Lavish steeled herself for the onslaught of self-deprecation that was certain to follow. "I am a hypocrite. I betrayed Lucy's confidence to you; how appropriate that you should betray my confidence. I shall not speak more to you, lest I accidentally reveal more embarrassing secrets that are not so readily repaired."

"Nonsense!"

"No, it's true. My constant meddling has had everyone in a muddle, and it was only through the grace of God and the persistence of more practical minds that Lucy and George were able to—"

"George? George Emerson?" Miss Lavish regretted the question as soon as it burst from her lips, for to be sure it sent Miss Bartlett into another fit of hand-wringing and head-shaking. "Oh, pish, Charlotte. Don't be so dramatic! Of course, I see now that it had to be young Mr. Emerson. He was the only young man who fit the description you gave, who could have kissed Lucy. But, tell me, dear, that the two lovebirds have found happiness. Tell me, please, that this adventure has not ended in tragedy but, as all light-hearted escapades are wont to end, in bliss!"

"Oh, they have run off together to Italy, to the same pensione in Florence where they met. And while some are happy with the match, to be certain Mister Emerson Senior and Lucy's brother Freddy, others are not quite so happy." Charlotte seemed to relax a bit, as the story was already figured out by Miss Lavish, therefore freeing her from the charge of gossiping. "But so much drama came of it, and then…" But she paused here, a far-away look hazing her expression for a slight moment. "Somehow, the muddle righted itself, and the two children are off in bliss, as you so grandly put it, as all light-hearted escapades are wont to end."

"This is a thing to be celebrated, then," Eleanor whispered. She did not want to disturb whatever emotion had come over her friend; no, in fact, she wanted it to persevere, to germinate and grow within Miss Bartlett's psyche. For in her eyes, Charlotte held a light of beauty, of wonder that such a thing could happen. She held the light of belief, of faith in the power of love to win out over seemingly insurmountable odds.

Without hesitation or the slightest forethought, Miss Lavish kissed Miss Bartlett, as George Emerson had kissed Lucy Honeychurch, with abandon, with passion, without a thought for convention or consequence. She brushed her hands in that soft hair, her fingers knotting slightly in the loose braid as she held her closely. Miss Bartlett, to her surprise, did not push or protest; rather, she moaned slightly with a gentle abandon as she trembled in the embrace. It was neither confirmation nor denial, but a helpless sound of confusion.

Miss Lavish kept through with the kiss, for it was something she had wished to do as far back as Florence, the afternoon they had been lost together on their private tour of the city. It was something she had not allowed herself to dream of, when they had corresponded in the months since their acquaintance, as she read Charlotte's letters, so precisely designed to reveal nothing, yet so terribly revealing in their precision.

And her patience, it seemed, had been a worthy cause; for Charlotte relaxed in her embrace, wrapped her arms around Eleanor's shoulders, and returned the kiss with a force that surprised Miss Lavish no end. It was a kiss of warmth and repressed passion, a release of such power that it threatened to overwhelm them both. And it was with sweet sighs of affection, amidst soft kisses to the cheeks and eyes and throat, that Miss Charlotte Bartlett gave herself over to nature, to that beast within her she had feared for so many years.

It was several minutes later before either could speak. In the interim, they communicated through soft kisses, gentle squeezes of the hand, shy looks. They communicated through cheeks brushing against each other, through the breathing in of each others' scents—so subtle and delicate. When words came, they seemed too harsh, too rough for the moment, and Eleanor kept her words to a whisper when she did finally speak.

"I am off to Spain tomorrow," she breathed into Charlotte's hair. "I am to spend six weeks there, researching my new book." She brushed her lips against the warm honey-colored locks. "Come with me, love."

"How can I?" Charlotte began, but her protests were met with kiss after deep, lingering kiss. Soon, she forgot her protests and simply said, "It will be a scandal!"

"Scandalous," Miss Lavish agreed, and kissed her friend again. There was a shift in the air, as if something profound yet invisible had changed. Fear, that unholy monster that had plagued dear Charlotte all these years, seemed to have abandoned her. She looked at Eleanor with the same expression she'd had during their adventures in Florence, that open, excited air of expectation. "And what an adventure we shall have!"

Charlotte lowered her eyes, as if she could not bear to release her old ways all in one fell swoop. "How would I explain it to my family?"

"We shall find a way."

"Will you…" She blushed, and buried her face suddenly in Eleanor Lavish's shoulder for a moment before regaining her composure. "Will you kiss me again? In Spain, that is?"

And Eleanor Lavish, student of human nature, laughed as loud and as free as she had ever done so in all her life. "Oh, my sweet Charlotte, I shall kiss you again. And again, until eternity itself cannot deny our love."

With the satisfaction of that knowledge firmly in place, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, perhaps inspired by the actions of her young cousin, or perhaps through a streak of wildness long possessed, but deeply buried within her, vowed to embark upon a scandal of her very own.

END  



End file.
